


Love & Hate

by mirajanihiggins



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, John-centric, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Pining Sherlock, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 03:36:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4289217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirajanihiggins/pseuds/mirajanihiggins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things have NOT returned to normal in the wake of the Mary Watson debacle. John has left 221B and Sherlock is nowhere to be found after having fallen back into drug use. Now John must try to repair the damage wrought on their relationship before things turn deadly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love & Hate

“John!”

“Mrs. Hudson! What’s the matter? Why are you calling…”

It was very seldom that John Watson heard that sort of panic in Mrs. Hudson’s voice. While she may not be a pillar of strength most of the time, she was, in John’s experience, levelheaded in a crisis, such as the time the CIA came looking for Irene Adler’s phone. She had artfully palmed it and hidden it inside her bra until he and Sherlock had arrived.

“John, I just heard the most awful commotion upstairs in your flat! It sounded like someone was ransacking the place! I was afraid to go up there!” she cried out in dismay. He could hear a distant booming and thumping in the background and was amazed Mrs. Hudson hadn’t already called in the bobbies.

John turned around mid-stride and started running back to 221B Baker Street as fast as traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, would allow. “I’m on my way, Mrs. H. Just lock yourself in your apartment and I’ll take care of this!” he said, breathlessly.

“Oh, dear. I’ve been so worried over the past couple of weeks...”

“Why?” he asked as he pounded down the pavement, his spare frame occasionally bouncing off someone who didn’t move out of his way quickly enough. “Isn’t Sherlock up there?”

“No! That’s why I’ve been so worried! Do _you_ know where Sherlock is?”

John’s blood froze. _Sherlock_.

“What, haven’t you seen him lately?” John asked between gasps. He slid between two parked cars and was nearly plowed down by a cabbie who flipped him the bird. He flipped one right back and kept running. “So he’s not at the flat?”

Mrs. Hudson’s voice was tremulous. “No, dear, not since the two of you had your little domestic.”

Shit. _Shitshitshitshit._ It was usually bad when Sherlock took off without him. God only knew where he went or what he’d be doing in those times. Ever since that business with Mary, Sherlock and John’s relationship had been…well, _unstable_ would be a gracious term for it. John had already caught him in a drug den once with an armful of cocaine and had had to drag him home to get him detoxed, ranting at him the whole way. It hadn’t been an easy time of it for either of them, but at least Sherlock hadn’t been on the drugs long enough to build up a tremendous load in his body. Sherlock was the worst possible kind of addict—an intelligent one who thought he knew his limits. _To a point_. After that, everything went to shit.

“Do you think it could be Sherlock up there?” she fretted. Loud bangs and crashes were still intermittently audible behind her nervous voice. “Oh, John, whoever it is, they’re still at it. Please hurry!”

He took a short cut through Regency Park, scaring some dog walkers and riling up their dogs. _One more block to Baker Street,_ he thought as he wove his way through an elderly couple, a bicycle rider, and one very scared cat.

“John, do you have your gun with you? They might be armed…” Mrs. Hudson worried.

The realization that he had left his gun in the flat when he stormed out caused him a bad moment as he ground to a halt at the front door of 221B. _Oh, great, another thing to worry about—getting shot by my own gun…_

“Mrs. Hudson, I’m out front. Stay where you are. I’ll let myself in,” John informed her in a low, steady voice. He could tell Mrs. Hudson was near the end of her rope by the little whimpers he could hear on the still-open line.

“The banging noises have stopped, but there’s some kind of…like a…like a _keening_ sound. It’s dreadful! It sounds like a wounded animal!”

Quietly, John slipped the key in the lock and turned it, disengaging the lock and allowing the door to swing open on its own. There was nothing waiting for him in the tiny vestibule between the front and inner doors or anything to give him a clue as to what to expect upstairs. Before proceeding, however, John stepped backward, off the front stoop and onto the sidewalk, and looked up at the front windows of the flat he and Sherlock shared. The curtains seemed somewhat askew, as if something had been thrown against them and had pulled on the fabric, bending the rod. No faces were visible, however.

Re-entering the vestibule, he slowly, carefully, opened the inner door with its frosted glass inset. The hallway was all clear but he could hear the strange sound Mrs. Hudson had described. It _did_ sound like an animal in pain. He tiptoed to Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen door and rapped on it lightly. He heard a scurry of feet and a familiar voice hissed, “Who is it?” in muffled tones.

John pocketed his phone after identifying himself. The door opened a crack and he slipped in, closing and locking the door behind him. Mrs. Hudson grabbed his arms and, for the first time, he could see the distress, the _fear_ on her face, not just in her voice. She was as white as the proverbial sheet.

He sat her down at her kitchen table and poured her a glass of water to drink from the tap. She took a few sips, then pushed the glass away.

“How long has this been going on?” he asked, leaning down to brush her hair from her forehead in a calming gesture.

She shook her head, swallowed hard, and said, “I don’t know, maybe half an hour or so. Shortly before I called you I heard someone just barrel through the doors like a freight train. It went up the stairs, making all sorts of racket, almost like it was…bouncing off the walls?” She looked at John with pleading eyes, her hands clasped to her chest. “Do be careful, John. You have no idea what’s up there!”

 _That’s the problem_ , he thought. _I think I do know what’s up there. Besides my gun. Shit. When it rains, it pours, doesn’t it?_

As he exited Mrs. Hudson’s flat, he made sure she secured the door behind him. He cautiously started up the stairs and heard the sound of movement from within his flat. The living room door appeared to be open, but not the kitchen one. That was unusual. Normally both doors were left open for ventilation due, in large part, to Sherlock’s experiments and, sometimes, his attempts at cooking. 

John carefully placed his feet on the non-squeaky stairs so that he could surprise whoever was lurking inside. At the switchback landing he paused, straining his ears for any telltale sign of where the intruder might be while still staying out of sight. He heard a few more thumps and bangs but they didn’t sound _organized_. Experienced thieves are usually very methodical in the way in which they plunder a flat. This just sounded like someone having a major temper tantrum. 

He heard a drawer open in the living room desk—a very specific drawer whose sound he was very familiar with. The realization chilled his heart. It was the drawer where he kept his gun. The one he had opened and closed countless times when he thought Sherlock was dead, contemplating a quick death at his own hand as an alternative to the daily emotional hell of losing the person he loved most in this world. 

_Oh, fuck, could this possibly get any better?_

That strange sound began to emanate once again from the front room of the flat. It didn’t sound _human_ , but they had no animals—well, no _live_ ones, anyway—in the flat. So what could it be? 

Climbing up the last of the stairs, John inched his way to the far door, the only one that was open. He cautiously peeked around the corner. The front room was a shambles. And there, huddled in a mass of blue silk, next to John’s chair, was the figure of a man. There was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach when John realized who it was. 

It was Sherlock. 

His beautiful, thick, curly hair was oily and unkempt. He was wearing one of his dressing gowns but it was smudged and soiled and draped over his gaunt form like a shroud. He was on his knees, bent over almost double, holding something metal and easily recognizable between shaky hands. 

John’s gun. 

He was mumbling to himself, his movements jerky and abrupt, so very unlike the normally fluid, almost dance-like movements typical of Sherlock at his best. But this was Sherlock at his worst. John hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks because of a row they had had about Sherlock’s drug use. Sherlock had claimed that he had used cocaine “for a case”, which was bullshit, as far as John was concerned. Sherlock had more than enough experience with being high to play the addict without succumbing to the siren song of cocaine again. 

That business with Mary had taken a horrible toll on their relationship, their trust. Sherlock had fallen back on drugs after John’s marriage, so John _knew_ he was vulnerable to self-medication whenever he was in pain. And, God, that last row had been so heady that _both_ of their tempers had flared, badly. John had finally lost it completely, screaming at Sherlock that he could go kill himself with drugs if he wanted to, that he was _done_ with him, that he was moving out as soon as he could find a flatshare. And he _had_ moved into his surgery that day, using the loo there for personal hygiene and an examining table for sleep. He hadn’t called, hadn’t responded to texts, hadn’t been back to 221B since. Pride and anger. What a deadly combination _that_ could be. 

But the worst part, the very worst part, of the argument was when John had told Sherlock—his dearest, closest, most cherished friend--that he _hated_ him for what he had done to himself, what he had _allowed_ himself to devolve into _. If you hate yourself so fucking much, why put it off, Sherlock? Why not just burn your brain out and end your suffering, and ours, all at the same time? You’ve never appreciated your gift, your friends, or yourself! Selfish bastard!_ And he had walked out, never looking back to see the effect of his words on his friend. 

And, now, here was that self-same friend, obviously strung out on drugs and toying with a loaded pistol. _His_ pistol. _Oh, Christ, this is my fault. Again. I should have been here for him. I drove him to this. WHY IS EVERYTHING ALWAYS MY FUCKING FAULT?_

He always knew Sherlock was fragile. The façade of the genius, arrogant and imperious, could be easily shattered if one knew where to apply pressure. Sherlock had more pressure points than most because he had a more complicated nature than most. Irene Adler had said it—“Damaged _and_ delusional,” and oh-so-human. His big brain needed constant stimulation and, if he didn’t get it through a case, he’d get it through the drugs that could both stimulate his mind and derange it, sending him over the edge with a single miscalculation. 

Genius and madness--two sides of the same coin, all wrapped up in one volatile, self-loathing man. The one kneeling on the floor in front of him, gripping his gun like it was his last friend in the world. 

“Sherlock,” John whispered through dry lips and an even drier throat as he knelt in the doorway. 

The figure on the floor froze. The keening stopped as well. 

“Sherlock!” Louder but still calm. He could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears. _Can he even still hear me? Understand me?_

The figure turned its head toward the door where John was crouched and looked at him with hollow eyes. The lovely cheekbones were sharp and emaciated, making his face look more like a skull than the man he’d known all these years. The face was dirty, lips cracked, the expression one of inexpressible sorrow. 

“John,” he whispered back. The faintest of smiles touched his lips. “I was… _hoping_ to see you again, but I didn’t think you would return here…while I was alive. Now that won’t be a problem.” The rich baritone of his voice was gone, replaced by a harsh, grating sound more suitable to a rusty gate. He looked down at the gun in his hands, turning it over and examining it as if doing so would give him the answer he sought. 

A single tiny gesture released the safety on the gun with an audible _click_. John’s breath caught in his throat. Just because it wasn’t Sherlock’s gun didn’t mean the he didn’t know how to use it. There was a perfectly innocent wall behind him that had borne the brunt of one of Sherlock’s worst days. Even now, the smiley-face he had shot into the wall stared down on the tense scene being played out below it with an ironic grin. 

“Why?” John asked, his voice gentle, as he tried to divert Sherlock’s attention from his blurry intention. “Why would you want to harm yourself, when you have so much to live for? I mean, _I_ don’t want you to hurt yourself.” 

“WHY WOULD YOU CARE?” Sherlock suddenly shouted, his face a mask of fury and despair. John recoiled as if slapped. “YOU… LEFT ME! I…NEEDED YOU...AND YOU…LEFT!” Sherlock choked, his chest heaving with suppressed emotion. His voice—the same voice which had just recently sounded like it was at death’s door—suddenly regained some of its former vigor and force, but there was a bitter, angry edge as well. He turned his face back to the gun and slowly raised it so that the barrel pointed between his eyes, a thumb resting on the trigger. His hands, cradling the butt of the gun as they would a lover’s face, rested on the floor just in front of his knees. 

John felt like the lowest form of life on the planet. He had spoken in anger, in pain, but it had ended up being Sherlock who was wounded, maybe beyond repair. “Please believe me, Sherlock, I didn’t mean it. My God, do you think I would ever want you to…to...” 

“You…told me…that I could go…kill…myself, that…you were …done…with me.” Great sobs began to wrack his frame, cutting off his words. It was painful to watch and even more painful to hear. Huge tears fell from his empty eyes, spattering on the sleeves of his dressing gown. Sherlock’s beautiful face was contorted with grief, nearly unrecognizable in its torment. “I can live…with your…anger, and I…can live…with your…indifference. I…can even…live…with your absence.” The last words came tumbling out of a broken heart. “BUT I CANNOT…LIVE…WITH YOUR HATRED!” 

John closed his eyes and averted his face, full of self-loathing. He had lost his temper one time— _one time_ —and his intemperate words had nearly destroyed his dearest, yet most vulnerable, friend. 

A keening sound—the same one he had heard in the stairwell--reached into his mind and heart, pulling him out of his crushing regret. It came from Sherlock. It was the sound of someone dying inside. 

_God, what to do, what to do? How can I salvage this? Save my friend from himself? Make amends for the horrible things I said?_

“Alright, Sherlock,” John sighed, resigned. He took a steadying breath before continuing. “Your way. Always your way.” He slowly crawled next to his friend, assumed the same crouching position, and announced, in a low, matter-of-fact voice, “Well, I hope you’ve more than one bullet in there, Sherlock, because if you kill yourself, so will I.” 

Sherlock turned his head slightly, pale eyes shifting in John’s direction. A shaky, tear-filled voice whispered, “No.” Then, “Why?” 

Using the gentlest voice of which he was capable, John replied, “Because I don’t want to live without you again, you mad git.” He reached out slowly and laid an arm gently, lovingly across Sherlock’s back as he continued. “I can’t _live_ without you again, Sherlock. I couldn’t bear it. Do you know how many times I was in this very same position? Gun to my head, safety off, finger on the trigger?” 

“No,” came a barely-audible response. The greasy curls hardly moved when he shook his head. 

“More times than I care to remember. I wanted to die, Sherlock, I wanted to die so badly, just to stop the pain of losing you.” He rested his head on Sherlock’s back and closed his eyes. “Please, Sherlock, please don’t do this. I love you.” John kissed his back through the silk-and-satin robe and laid his head down again. He could feel Sherlock’s ribs sticking out through the thin layers of his clothing, the heavy thudding of his heart. 

After a long, tense minute, Sherlock clicked the safety back on and dropped his head in resignation. “Now what?” he sighed, obviously exhausted, his drug high wearing off under the extreme stress he had just subjected himself to. 

John leaned in and whispered in his ear, “Now you give me the fucking gun, Drama Queen.” 

In spite of himself, Sherlock sputtered a feeble laugh. He looked tenderly at John with tired, reddened eyes as he handed over the pistol. “So you don’t hate me? For being weak?” he whispered. 

John shook his head and whispered back, “God, no, love. Never. And I should _never_ have said any of those things to you. They were cruel and angry words. Please, forgive me, Sherlock.” 

“I do, John. Always,” he said, nuzzling his face against John’s. “But I’m not as strong as you are, John,” he continued softly, wearily. “I need you to keep me right.” 

“No,” John disagreed firmly but gently. “You need to keep _yourself_ right. But I promise--I _promise_ \--that I will be here for you in the future, OK?” Sherlock nodded mutely. “Just don’t go trying to solve your problems with _this_ ,” John said, indicating the gun, “Or this,” tapping the needle marks on Sherlock’s arms. “You come to me and we’ll deal with this together.” 

Sherlock nodded again and slumped into John’s side. He smiled a pale version of one of those smiles reserved only for John, the kind that made his heart flutter. “I love you, John,” he murmured. 

John laid his fingers along Sherlock’s cheek, turned his face toward him, and kissed him on the lips. “I love you, too, sweetheart,” he responded. Then he wrinkled his nose. “But we’ve got to get you into a bath before anything else. You smell terrible and you look worse. I your current state, no one would ever believe that you are Sherlock Holmes, Posh Detective.” 

The smile he received after that joke was one from the heart. They exchanged one more kiss before John helped Sherlock stand and walk into the bathroom. “Oh, and, by the way, you’re going to help me clean this place up while you recover. We’ll work _to-ge-ther_. Agreed?” 

“Agreed,” Sherlock smiled as he took John’s hand and pulled him into the bathroom, closing the door behind them.


End file.
